



mcw i r\ /s 



DS 679 
.W52 
Copy 1 



, 'irst to the people of the United States. Congress never redresses a 
*b>rong until the people demand it/' — Secretary Stanton to Bishop Whipple. 
(Senator Lodge gives to Secretary Stanton a place even higher than that which he 
accords to Secretary Root, "the American Carnot") 



TO 
LINCOLN'S PLAIN PEOPLE 

FACTS REGARDING 

" BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION " 

IN THE 

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



- - 



44 CITY AND STATE" 

J305 ARCH STREET 

PHILADELPHIA 

MAY, J903 






1«\jLtnJ* JL-rv±- LU 



jlXa -w 



The plain people of the United States- — those who are 
not too much interested in money-getting-, or too much tied 
up with selfish interests of any kind, so that they are pre- 
vented from feeling the suffering of others — are especially 
appealed to in relation to the terrible facts here reprinted ; 
and this suggestion is made in regard to the matter : Every 
American citizen, man or woman, who believes that these 
crimes are an outrage upon the American name, should 
express that sentiment practically and without delay by 
writing (a) to the President, (b) to the Secretary of War, 
and (c) to their Congressmen, respectfully asking their 
attention to these disclosures and asking that such crimes 
as that charged against Major Howze be impartially inves- 
tigated, and if the facts be found as alleged, the perpe- 
trators be suitably punished. It is especially urged that 
newspaper publicity be sought for these facts. 

[From the New York "Evening Post."] 

CRUELTIES TO FILIPINOS. 



TERRIBLE BARBARITIES CHARGED TO MAJOR HOWZE. 

[Special Correspondence of the " Evening Post."] 

Manila, P. I., February 4. — It has been going the rounds here 
in Manila that an investigation has been made at last in the town 
of Laoag, province of North Ilocos, Island of Luzon, as to the beat- 
ing to death of several natives there by the orders of the then 
Lieut. -Col. Howze, Thirty-fourth United States Volunteer Infantry, 
then in command of the province of North Ilocos, and now by 
special favor of the President a major of the Porto Rican Regiment. 
This investigation and bringing to light of some of the horrible 
doings under Lieut. -Col. Howze is due to Gen. Miles, who, having 
heard of the affair, sent an officer there whose principal instructions 
were not confined to covering and hiding the truth, and hushing 
the matter. 



Though some weeks have passed since the investigation was 
made, it was not until this writing that your correspondent has 
been able to get at the substance of that report and subsequent 
developments in the case. Witnesses from all over the province 
were examined by that officer, and they testified so nearly the 
same as to show that there was no collusion in their evidence. 
Indeed, they were summoned without knowing for what they were 
wanted. From them this officer procured some thirty sworn affi- 
davits, and, based on these, he preferred charges against Lieut. - 
Col. Howze. These charges passing through the hands of Gen. 
Davis, the latter ordered another officer to go to the scene of the 
barbarities and procure the affidavits of two natives reported by 
the first investigator to have stated that they had been beaten. 
It is to be regretted that the instructions to the second officer 
limited his investigations to procuring two affidavits, because there 
was much more evidence of the savage brutality of Howze which 
did not appear at the first investigation, and which is yet available 
to any one who can speak Spanish, and would not be dependent 
upon an interpreter for everything. 

Briefly stated, a mere sample of Howze 's doings is as follows: 
About April 20, 1900, the town of Laoag, then occupied by United 
States troops, was attacked by Filipinos from the east side — from 
the direction of a town called San Miguel. Before this there had 
been plenty of beatings of natives by Lieut. -Col. Howze 's orders, 
but this was the cause of the arrest of a large number of natives 
for the purpose of forcing confessions from them and discovering 
who the assailants had been. Among this large number arrested 
were two prominent citizens named Jose Ver, Mayor of San Miguel, 
and Juan Avila, Mayor of San Nicolas, another town near Laoag. 
The system of Howze for extorting confessions was to arrest the 
parties and put them in jail. They were then sent over to the 
municipal building and there questioned by three specially selected 
men named Aguedo Agbayani (since deceased) ; his son-in-law, 
Pedro Valdez, and Isidoro Guerrero, the last being Mayor of Laoag 
at that time, and the first-named being the "civil adjutant" of 
Howze, regularly appointed as such by him. 

The prisoners in this case, as in others, were questioned by these 
arch-questioners, and, replying that they knew nothing as to who 
were the parties that made the attack on Laoag, they were beaten 
in the manner inaugurated by Howze — they were laid face down 
on benches about ten inches wide, their trousers removed from 
their buttocks. They were then beaten by policemen standing on 



both sides of the bench, usually six policemen — three on a side — 
using rattan rods about three-quarters inch in diameter and five 
feet long, with which they flailed the outstretched prisoner, using 
all their force with every blow, so that the buttocks were cut and 
gashed and the trousers shredded. Frequently the beatings pro- 
duced insensibility, and after them the prisoners were unable to 
rise. In the cases in question, blood streamed from the gashes 
and bits of flesh were scattered about the floor. 

PRISONERS DIED FROM THEIR BEATINGS. 

These two prisoners after this first beating were carried or led 
back to jail, and were brought the next day again before the three 
questioners, and, again saying that they knew nothing about the 
attack on Laoag, they were beaten again as before This time 
neither of them was able to walk back to jail. They were carried 
back. Neither one was able to eat again, and in three days both 
died from their injuries. They were known to have been in good 
health before receiving their beatings, and there are those in 
Laoag who will so testify. The doctor of the little town, Batac, 
will testify that he was a prisoner at the same time with these 
two unfortunates, and that he bathed their wounds after coming 
from their beatings, and he will testify to their character. Indeed, 
the jail records, which have not yet been put out of the way, show 
that these two men died "from no disease whatever" (" sin enfer- 
medad ninguna " ) . 

These beatings were so awful that two of the army officers then 
at Laoag took courage and wrote private letters to the authorities 
regarding them. One wrote a personal letter to Gov. Taft, and 
the other wrote a personal letter to Gen. Young, who was the next 
higher military commander, but at a great distance away. The 
only action taken in regard to the matter was a telegram from 
Gen. Young to Howze, saying that if there was whipping going 
on at Laoag it must be stopped. Howze telegraphed back that 
there had been none except during two days while he was absent 
from Laoag. These two telegrams have not yet been disposed of. 

As to the two days of absence of Lieut. -Col. Howze, immediately 
after the death of the two prisoner Mayors — three days after the 
second beating which caused their death, there was a good deal 
of talk about these deaths and the cruelty of Howze, and the 
latter left Laoag for two days. During his absence Major Swigert 
(now Colonel) of the Third Cavalry had the bodies exhumed — 
four days after death — for examination, but the doctor who was to 



examine them was the surgeon in Howze's regiment. The bodies 
were in such a state of putrefaction in this hot climate that no one 
could examine or hardly approach them. It can be proved that 
all that this surgeon did was to raise up a corner of the cloth cover- 
ing the bodies and take one glance at them. From this he stated 
that he had examined the bodies, and that the prisoners did not 
die from their beatings. 

PUBLIC WHIPPINGS IN THE PLAZA. 
There were also two public whippings or beatings ordered by 
Lieut. -Col. Howze. These took place in the public plaza of Laoag 
in the manner described above. From the effects of one of these 
one poor prisoner died the same night. He had been a captain 
in the revolutionist army against Spain. John Merrill, then a 
private in Company E or G (I have been unable to find out which), 
and now a teamster employed by the Army Quartermaster's De- 
partment at Dagupan, was among many other soldiers an eye- 
witness to the public whipping, so-called, of this captain. He 
states that he was beaten and cut so badly that the blood streamed 
from his wounds, and that when led away every step he took 
left bloody tracks and that he was so injured that he could take 
steps of but three inches at a time, and that the poor wretch 
begged the sentry to shoot him, saying in Spanish, "My death is 
of no importance. I am not going to confess." ("Mi muerte no 
importa. Yo no hablo.") Merrill says, and others will say, that 
this beating was so terrible that it made soldiers shed tears who 
stood by and watched it. The force with which the rods were 
applied to the poor outstretched prisoners, the sounds of the blows, 
the gashes, the streaming blood, and the suffering, quivering 
wretches, were more than those hardened soldiers could endure. 
Their exclamations at the force and sounds of the blows showed 
that their hearts had yet a soft part to them, though commanded 
by a man more representative of the North American savage than 
of civilized white beings. 

WITNESSES OF CRUELTIES STILL AVAILABLE. 

Most of the policemen now in Laoag can and will testify to 
these beatings mentioned and to many others in which they were 
the ones that wielded the rattan rods (they cannot be called either 
whips or lashes). One of these policemen was himself beaten 
for refusing, when ordered, to beat one of his relatives. 

Witnesses at Laoag will testify that it was no uncommon sight 






5 

in the municipal building in Laoag to see natives lying stretched 
out on benches, face down, with their buttocks bare, gashed and 
bleeding. They were at times beaten to insensibility. On one 
occasion there were seen in that municipal building as many as 
twenty natives lying thus stretched out and bleeding, and unable 
to rise. 

Although it is now two and a half, nearly three, years since 
the reign of this American savage at Laoag, native men have been 
examined there recently who were beaten by the orders of this 
cruel whelp, and these men to-day bear the marks of those beatings. 
These scarred witnesses are still available. Also many others who 
were beaten, but who have not been examined for the scars re- 
maining. 

HOWZE'S REPUTATION AMONG HIS FELLOWS. 

Howze is a graduate of West Point, appointed from Texas, and 
is a captain in the Sixth Cavalry; but, as above stated, now holds 
the temporary appointment of major in the Porto Rican regiment 
by special favor of President Roosevelt, whose friend he is. He 
was called "The Squaw" by the cadets at West Point, on account 
of the cruel Indian face he has. He has very few friends among 
his fellow-officers who know him, who have always considered him 
one of the coldest blooded men in the army. 

The public has heard a great deal about the "water-cure" 
inquisitional punishment which was borrowed from the natives, 
but until recently it has been kept in ignorance of the fact that 
an American army officer invented and practised in the islands 
something equally severe and barbarous, but more representative 
of the North American savage. 

The questions now arising are: Will he be punished? What 
effort will be made to get evidence against him? Will he continue 
in the army ? Will he continue a Presidential favorite ? 



[From City and State, Philadelphia.] 

DISCREET SILENCE. 

All good citizens, who wish to see the civil and personal rights 
which the late President McKinley guaranteed the Filipinos, at 
the time when by executive order he extended our sovereignty 
over them made real and vital, will feel grateful to the Philadelphia 
' ' Ledger ' ' for its admirable editorial on the Howze death- whipping 
case, published recently. We advise all honest men who have 



any kind of a heart left in their bosoms to read that ringing word. 
We hope President Roosevelt will read it in quiet moments (if he 
finds any such) during his 16,000-mile second term electioneering 
tour; the "American Carnot," Secretary Root — he should read it, 
also, between the preparation of skilful legal briefs showing that 
white is black and black white, when seen through War Department 
spectacles, and that there is one sauce for the Filipino goose and 
a very different one for the army torturer gander in the great 
War Department kitchen. Senator Lodge, as well, should include 
what the ' ' Ledger ' ' says about the Howze death- whippings in his 
library of select literature, over which he casts a cultured eye in 
preparation of anti-imperialist declamatory castigations, such as 
he recently gave before the Boston Home Market Club. Nor 
should Governor Taft be excluded from the administrative coterie 
of select readers, — Governor Taft who told the Senate Philippine 
Committee about a year ago : "I have heard charges of whippings, " 
and said "they were rife in Manila." He certainly should read 
what the "Ledger" has had to say on this subject of Howze 's 
bamboo beatings which not only drew the blood of men subjected 
to them, but actually scatter ei bits of flayed flesh on the floor of 
their blood-splashed torture chamber. And as Governor Taft 
reads the awful but true indictment, — so awful that it recalls the 
worst things ever read or imagined of Russian knout or Turkish 
bastinado, or Neronian mania cruelty, — he should lay the facts 
now brought out, — as they are in studiously restrained language, — 
side by side with his testimony of a year ago. The people of the 
United States, also, — not the high and cultured, who seem through 
much learning and overfatness of wealth, opportunity, and privi- 
lege, to have lost the old-fashioned heart-beat, — but the plain 
people — Abraham Lincoln's plain people, those who hew, and 
sweat, and delve in the toil of plain living, and whose hearts still 
beat and have some red blood in them — red enough to feel pity 
for red blood cruelly spilled under the Howze bamboo death- 
whippings, — these also should watch Governor Taft as he makes 
the strange comparison. 

"These charges of whippings and charges of what has been 
alluded to as the water cure [water kill, dear Governor, in the case 
of Father Augustine and some others], they were rife in Manila, 
and I was about to proceed as to the responsibility and how they 
came about, and the possible explanation of them. Of course it 
was no duty of mine. That was a military question.'" Was this 
strictly so, Governor — no duty of yours? Was this whipping sim- 






ply a rumor rife in Manila ? Did it come no nearer your humane 
ears than you here indicate, in time to stop the horror and countless 
other horrors that trod swift on its bloody heels, because the 
guilty murderer was not executed, if the charge were proved 
against him, as he ought to have been? 

The " Post's" correspondent, evidently an intelligent, careful 
man, who had an accurate knowledge of the truth as given in 
Colonel Hunter's exhaustive, evidence-buttressed report, says: 
"These beatings were so awful that two of the army officers then 
at Laoag took courage and wrote private letters to the authorities 
regarding them. One wrote a personal letter to Governor Taft and 
the other a personal letter to General Young, who was the next 
higher military commander, but at a great distance away. The 
only action taken in the matter was a telegram from General Young 
to Howze saying that if whipping was going on at Laoag it must be 
stopped. Howze telegraphed back that there had been none except 
during two days while he was absent from Laoag " — a false state- 
ment, as afterward shown. "These two telegrams have not been 
disposed of." In other words, they are, we assume, to-day avail- 
able as evidence. (Italics ours.) 

But first a concluding query to Governor Taft which we hope 
he will answer. Did you, Governor, ever receive the letter from 
the army officer referred to above, — the letter which must have 
apprised you of the horrible and vitally important alleged truth, 
that not only had a few war prisoners been whipped to death, 
under orders from Howze, but that scores, probably more than 
one hundred, had been similarly whipped, so that they could 
not stand, so that some did not recover for days and weeks? If 
you received this letter, Governor, how could you, the representa- 
tive of American law, justice, and humanity, say before the Senate 
Committee that such a matter was "rumored," or that it was 
"no business" of yours and was a "military affair"? According 
to this statement, the officer who wrote you, at great personal 
peril, trusted that your sense of justice and humanity would secure 
justice and humane action. If it was true that Colonel Howze 
had been guilty of this awful crime, he should have been tried 
and shot for the "honor of the army," for the honor of humanity, 
just as Kitchener shot the Australian officer in South Africa who 
plundered and murdered a Boer clergyman. Did you ever hear 
of the Filipino woman tortured under orders from an American 
army officer at Cabatuan, Panay, in June, 1900, — the poor native 
woman who was stripped of clothing, and with a rope attached 



8 

to her ankles was lowered, head downward, into a deep well and 
so tortured until, half dead with fright and drowning, she gave 
so-called evidence on which four men were hanged — the presidente 
of Cabatuan, the vice-presidente, the chief of police, and the 
sergeant of police? Four human souls, so the story runs, were 
sent by an ignominious death out of life. For what crime? Because 
they knew the fact that the husband of this woman had killed 
a United States soldier and had not informed on the slayer. Be- 
cause, so the story further runs, the native's wife had entered into 
criminal relations with this member of an invading subjugating 
army. These four members of the conquered people were hanged 
because they hid that fact! And hanged on tortured testimony 
of a woman! O Liberty (or O Justice), what crimes are com- 
mitted in thy name! And suppose, Governor Taft, the theory 
of justice on which that military officer is said to have acted, and 
on which we have good reason to think he did act, were applied 
to this case — if the facts are as stated? 

But let us apply only this moral test: Were not you morally 
bound to lift up the voice of protest, the crime-accusing voice, 
if that army officer's letter from Laoag ever reached you, — that 
some justice might be done to these terribly outraged people, and 
that a human monster who had so wronged them might be pun- 
ished? Were you not morally bound to have the whole affair 
investigated to the bottom, as three years later General Miles is 
forcing investigation of it? You said in your testimony before 
the Senate Committee, page 65 : "War is hard, war is rough, — war 
is cruel, and when the death and sufferings that were caused to 
many Filipinos were known to their brethren, it is not reasonable 
to expect that they should love the instrument by which that punish- 
ment was inflicted. ' ' 

Yes, Governor, City and State admits what you say is true 
about war in general. But how about war in particular? How 
about this war? How about the war in which officers like Chaffee, 
Smith, Hughes, Bell, gave to hundreds of officers orders which 
were in effect a direct and terrible carte blanche to commit atrocities 
like the flowze death- whippings, like the Father Augustine torture, 
robbery, and murder, to create the concentration camps that were 
described by a military officer as "suburbs of hell," a war in 
which orders were issued which, as another military man has 
said (a man better acquainted with necessary horrors of war than 
you or your associates), gave direct warrant to kill the Christian 
priest as he elevated the host at the altar or administered the 



last Sacrament to the dying; such a war as that which forces 
one to turn to the times of Alva or Nero for suitable comparison, 
a war which our Carnot has said "was conducted with scrupulous 
regard for the rules of civilized warfare, with careful and genuine 
consideration for the prisoner [think of the prisoners who died 
under the Howze death-beatings] and non-combatant, with self- 
restraint and humanity never surpassed, if ever equaled in any 
conflict, worthy only of praise and reflecting credit on the American 
people " ? Well, in a war like that, it is true, as you say, Governor, 
the people over whom its besom of destruction has passed, like 
the tenth plague of Egypt, can scarcely be expected to "love the 
instrument" (death-dealing, flesh-chopping, Howze bamboo flail, 
or smooth-operating water cure, as the case may be) — that smites 
them. But, O Governor, to think that you, the learned, the 
benevolent representative of American humanity and kindness, 
should have known at the time, before any two years' slow move- 
ment had dragged with them that welcome murderer-saving statute 
of limitations, — had known this awful truth, that you might have 
spoken it timely, savingly, to our honor and to the protection 
of the poor people whom we were punishing "just for their good"; 
and you kept silent; you held back the word which never can 
be spoken again! Oh, the pity of it! 

COURT OF INQUIRY FOR HOWZE? 

According to newspaper reports, Major Howze has asked for 
a board of inquiry to investigate the charges against him, of having 
whipped Filipino prisoners of war at Laoag, P. I., in the spring of 
1900. In a letter to the New York "Evening Post," Mr. Herbert 
Welsh, of Philadelphia, after stating he was glad to see that 
Major Howze had asked for a court of inquiry, offered the following 
suggestions for the aid of the court in investigating the matter: 

"Require the War Department to publish and circulate in 
full, through the medium of the Associated Press, those portions 
of Lieut. -Gen. Nelson A. Miles's report, now catacombed in the 
War Department, at present 'not printed,' but regarded by the 
Department as 'an Inspector's report,' and hence 'secret and con- 
fidential.' Let this report be regarded as open to the entire Ameri- 
can public, whose units are supposed to be the lawful governors 
of our American dependencies. Also publish in full report of 
Major Hunter, on which your Manila correspondent evidently 
bases his statements. Also summon before this court of inquiry 
the two military officers who are reported to have notified Governor 



IO 

Taft and General Young respectively; also summon GovernorTaft 
and General Young; the former to show in full the contents of 
their respective letters, and the latter to make known to the court 
and public their respective replies to these letters. Also summon 
the surgeon who examined the bodies of Filipino prisoners of war 
who were whipped to death, which examination was said to have 
been made several days after the death and burial of the victims. 
Also summon the surgeon, Dr. Woods, who, in the Father Augus- 
tine murder case, reported to the authorities that the priest died 
of 'fatty degeneration of the heart,' and of 'extreme mental an- 
guish,' when he really died of strangulation by torture, at the 
hands of Capt. Cornelius N. Brownell. Also summon Lieutenant 
Sinclair, who wrote Mrs. Richter after her son had died at Das- 
marines of gag and iced-water torture at his hands, that it was 
his 'painful duty to inform her that her son died the night before 
of appneumatosis.' These witnesses are important to show what 
methods of concealment and misrepresentation were employed to 
cover the perpetration of hideous crimes under the cloak of natural 
causes. A court of inquiry following these general and specific 
lines will be more apt to do justice to Major Howze, and to all 
concerned, than one following opposing lines. In closing I beg 
to suggest that the thirty-odd native and some white witnesses 
to the alleged bamboo beatings, or the after-effects of beatings, 
who were gathered from different parts of the province of Ilocos, 
and whose testimony, I understand, was obtained by Col. Hunter 
separately, ought to be summoned before the proposed board; or 
at least their affidavits should be secured. Colonel Hunter him- 
self ought also to be summoned, and, of course, all witnesses who 
may be desired by Major Howze. General Young ought to be 
asked why, when he received information of the alleged bamboo 
death-beatings in 1900, he did not order a court-martial at once, 
so that Major Howze might be fairly tried for murder of prisoners, 
and for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." 

Commenting on the proposed Howze inquiry case, City and 
State says: 

"To return to Major Howze, of the Porto Rico Regiment. 
Under an application of our rules of war, no more rigid than is 
necessary to preserve discipline and to keep the army up to a 
morale quite necessary if we are to cope successfully with a first- 
class foreign military force, the following declaration may be 
safely made: When General Young was informed, in 1900, by the 



II 



military officer who knew the facts, of the crime alleged against 
Lieutenant-Colonel Howze, it was General Young's duty to im- 
mediately order a court-martial of Howze. If the charges were 
proved true, Lieutenant-Colonel Howze should have been shot 
without delay, for the 'honor of the army.' General Young, 
failing to do his duty in this regard, should have been court-mar- 
tialed and suitably punished 'for the honor of the army.' If 
during his trial it had come out he failed to do his duty on account 
of orders, open or secret, that came from an officer superior to him, 
that officer should have been court-martialed and punished; and 
so on up — even if it came to the Commander-in-Chief of the army, 
who is the President of the United States. If it could have been 
shown that he gave such orders or allowed them to be given by 
others, or permitted these orders to do their deadly work after he 
knew of their existence, by not countermanding them, then the 
President of the United States should have been impeached by 
the highest law-making body of the country, which becomes judicial 
in its functions; under such circumstances Andrew Johnson was 
impeached. By so doing, evil would have been put away from the 
House of Israel, to use the old biblical phrase, which some of our 
readers will understand. 

"To return again to Major Howze. A court of inquiry for 
which the accused has asked does not fit this case. We under- 
stand it is contrary to military procedure to call for such a court 
in such a case. What is required is a court-martial. This is a 
murder case, and Major Howze is still in the service. Care should 
be taken as to the selection of officers to form that court. The 
court should not be composed of men who believe in torture and 
who have themselves committed crimes similar to that of which the 
accused is charged, as has frequently been the case in the Philippines . 
The witnesses summoned should be men or women who know the 
facts, not those who do not know them (as in the case of the Met calf - 
Bishop whitewashing); also, they should be persons who can be 
depended on to tell the truth, not those who hold their consciences 
clear when they lie for the 'honor of the army.' We know such. 
Then if Major Howze is found guilty as charged, he would be shot 
as Lord Kitchener shot the Australian officer in South Africa. 
All this should be done for 'the honor of the army' and of the 
country, and the safety of the country and the army, and because 
justice is justice, and must be done, though the heavens fall; and 
because truth is truth, and cruelty cruelty; and because what 'ye 
would men should do to you do ye also to them'; and because 



12 




'no lie thrives'; and because blood spilled unrighteously on the 
ground cries to God for vengeance; and because we are not to go 
to a living God, as this nation is now doing, with a lie in its right 
hand; and because the nation that 'will not serve me/ saith God 
'shall perish'; and because words of this kind once uttered, return 
not to Him void. 

"There would therefore seem to be sufficient 'becauses,' since 
with varying phraseology, perhaps, they contain fundamental 
truth which is written in the spirit of all loving men of whatever 
name they may be called, in letters that no sophistry or devil's 
argument of any kind can erase." 

In writing on the Howze, case and the speech of Senator 
Lodge, delivered before the Home Market Club in Boston, in which 
Mr. Lodge defended the Administration's policy in the Philippines 
and stated that the Republican Party would not "hound down" 
officers and men for cruelties committed in the Philippines the 
editor of the "Public Ledger" said: 

"But the honor of the army is not to be maintained by hiding 
and excusing the unworthy acts of individual rascals numbered 
among its officers or in its ranks. Never in the world was there 
an army without its scalawags; to pretend that our men in the 
Philippines are without exception faultless is to exceed the re- 
quirements of patriotism; while to shield the torturers and mur- 
derers, whose proved crimes have shocked the moral sensibilities 
of the world, is to implicate the whole army and the government 
itself m the shame, which the swift punishment of the actual 
offenders would leave upon them alone. 

"There is one way by which to do something toward effacing 
the blot. Captain R. L. Howze is still in the service of the United 
States. Although Governor Taft and General Young were in- 
formed of thejLaoag barbarities, their perpetrator has since been ad- 
vanced in rank. Very likely his guilt was not so clear as it has 
since appeared. But the facts are now in possession of the War 
Department. There are in this case no technicalities, such as 
allowed Captain Brownell to escape punishment for the torture 
and murder of Father Augustine. The charges do not proceed 
from those citizens whom it pleases thick-and-thin, right-or-wrong 
Administration organs to denounce as copperheads and malignant 
defamers, but from army officers themselves, jealous of their 
country's good name. The policy of the War Department in 
the whole miserable business of outrages by degenerate officers 



1 3 

upon people in the Philippines, supported, as it is, by the wretched 
paltering to false sentiment by men like Senator Lodge, affords 
little hope that the army will be saved from the disgrace it lies 
under so long as Howze goes unpunished; but it is none the less 
the duty of those who love their country to cry out against the 
hideous outrage of allowing this brute to go about in the uniform 
of the United States army." 



[From the New York "Sun."] 

" BELLAIRS." 

The name of the assailant of Governor Taft and the eulogist of 
Gen. Leonard Wood does not appear in the New York Directory. 
Neither the Brooklyn Directory nor that of Jersey City contains 
it. It is unknown in Hoboken. It is not included among the 
contemporary citizens mentioned in "Who's Who in America." 
No Bellairs has found a place in the seven volumes of the "Cyclo- 
paedia of American Biography." 

These circumstances do not prove that Bellairs is a pseudonym, 
but they illustrate the exceeding rarity, in this country, of the 
name which appears on the title page of "As It Is in the Philip- 
pines," the book recently contrived for the purpose of pulling down 
the reputation of Governor Taft and exalting Gen. Leonard Wood 
as his foreordained successor. . . . 

But if, on the other hand, it is true, as we have had for some 
time good reason to suspect, and as the "Evening Post" last night 
assured us, that Charles Ballentine is the real name of "Captain 
Edgar G. Bellairs, late of the Surrey Volunteers," the attack on 
Governor Taft and the elaborate effort to boost Gen. Wood into 
Taft's place assume an altogether different complexion. 

For if Bellairs is Charles Ballentine, formerly of Norfolk, 
England, and lately the extremely serviceable friend of Gen. 
Leonard Wood, we need go nowhere else for his credentials than 
to page 220 of that "Who's Who in Rascaldom," Inspector 
Byrnes's encyclopaedic treatise on the "Professional Criminals of 
America." Here we find Ballentine 's portrait, numbered 346 in the 
rogues' gallery, directly beneath the likeness of "Lizzie Myers, 
alias Mary Sad and Queen Liz, Shoplifter," and alongside of 
"Thomas E. Hardman, Badger and Swindler." 

In such company is exhibited " No. 346, Charles Ballentine, 
alias Ernest Allaine Cheiriton, Forger and Swindler," with the 
following biographical details as compiled by the omniscient and 
indefatigable Byrnes: 



14 



"346.— C. Ballentine, alias Ernest Allaine Cheiriton, Forger 
and Swindler. 

"description. 
'Thirty-four years old in 1895. Born in England. Journalist. 
Single. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, 155 
pounds. Light-brown hair, light-blue eyes, fair complexion. 
Marks, etc. An anchor in ink on right forearm. Very gentle- 
manly appearance. 

"record. 
Ballentine is a clever English swindler. He has been swindling 
people from the time he entered Cheltenham College in England, 
nineteen years ago. 

" He made a book on the principal English races while in that 
school as shrewdly and as profitably as the most expert gambler. 
His everyday companions were sacrificed on the gambling altar, 
and the extravagances of this youth came from the pockets of 
the indulgent fathers of misguided sons. 

"His name is not 'Ernest Allaine Cheiriton,' 'E. Elaine,' 
nor ' E. A. Cameron.' His real name is Charles Ballentine, and he 
is the son of a clergyman in Norfolk County, England. 

"Since he left Cheltenham School he has been living on his 
wits. He has visited every country on the face of the globe, and 
the number of his victims runs into the thousands. The most 
successful part he plays is that of a society confidence man. The 
best families of England, France, Australia and Canada have been 
taken in by his suavity. The famous French watering place, 
Dieppe, was the scene of his first professional operations. 

"He went to Dieppe as an English swell, and left there after 
a four weeks' visit with a lot of money, owing an immense 
hotel bill. His movements after leaving Dieppe cannot be def- 
initely traced. He visited every European and nearly all the 
Asiatic countries, and in 1886 struck Australia. The big-hearted 
inhabitants of that promising colony took him in, and he in turn 
took them in. 

"At the time of his arrest in New York city (June 3, 1891) on 
a requisition issued by Governor F. P. Fleming, of Florida, he said 
that he had just come from Jamaica, W. L, and that as soon as 
certain money matters were fixed up he intended going back 
again to Australia. On June 10, 1891, he was delivered to the 
State agent of Florida and taken to Tampa, where he was wanted 
for forgery. 

"On this complaint he was sentenced to seven years in the 



i5 

State Penitentiary at Chattahoochee, Fla., on Dec. 23, 1 891, by 
Judge Mitchell, Circuit Court, Tampa, Fla. 

" Picture taken June, 1891. " 

The statement as to the fact of Ballentine's conviction at Tampa 
we are able to confirm by this memorandum from the Clerk of the 
Circuit Court where he was tried and sentenced: 

"On Dec. 16, 1891, E. Allaine Cheiriton (alias E. Allaine) 
was indicted for 'obtaining money under false pretenses.' On 
Dec. 18, 1891, he was tried and convicted, and on Dec. 23, 1891, 
he was sentenced to the penitentiary for seven (7) years at hard 
labor. 

" Hon. H. L. Mitchell was presiding Judge. 
"W. L. Hanks, Clerk. 
"D. B. Grimes, Deputy Clerk. 
"Tampa, March 20, 1903. " 

From Tallahassee we learn that Ballentine served five of his 
seven years at hard labor in the Florida State Penitentiary ; he was 
received there on Jan. 3, 1892, and discharged on pardon — appar- 
ently for good behavior while in prison — on Dec. 12, 1896. He had 
been out of convict garb only about fourteen months when the 
" Maine " was blown up at Havana and the war came on. 

It is proper to say that "Bellairs" was discharged from the 
service of the Associated Press as soon as the management of that 
establishment had reason to doubt the integrity of his character 
and the cleanness of his record. The fact of his dismissal is not 
chronicled on the title page or in the preface of "As It Is in the 
Philippines." Whether or not the termination of his employment 
as a news gatherer resulted from a full identification of Bellairs 
with Ballentine-Cheiriton, we do not know. 

With reference to the disclosures concerning the career of Edgar 
G. Bellairs, the New York "Evening Post" said: 

"For this man [Bellairs] who was so greatly honored, and so 
royally toasted by the highest officers in the American army in 
the Philippines, had served a seven years' sentence for forgery. 
Previously he had been a confidence man and genteel swindler in 
Europe, Australia, India, and Egypt. Yet within less than three 
years after he discarded his convict's garb he was in a position to 
mislead a very large portion of the American public, and to help 
boost into undeserved prominence, and into a brigadier-gen eralcy 
in the regular army, one Leonard Wood, Captain and Assistant 
Surgeon of Regulars, and General of Volunteers. . . . 



i6 

"We have told this story of Bellairs in Cuba somewhat at length 
simply to show how the swindler and forger, turned journalist, 
was able to impose upon the American public and give it an utterly 
wrong impression of what was occurring under the American flag. 
But his luck did not end there, nor his power for mischief. At 
Gen. Chaffee's and Gen. Humphrey's request he accompanied them 
on the China expedition, and next went with them to Manila. Here 
he was for nearly two years the chief telegraphic correspondent 
of the Associated Press, and, therefore, except for the 'Sun's' cor- 
respondent, the sole medium through which the great American 
republic has been getting its news of our colonial venture. Such 
glimpses of the occurrences in the Philippines as the average 
American had during Bellairs's stay in Manila were through the 
eyes of this confidence man, swindler, gambler, forger, and convict! 
Perfectly ready to admit in private conversation the flourishing 
character of the water-cure industry in the Philippines, his des- 
patches ever sided with the accused officers. There was never 
a suspicion in his despatches of disloyalty to Chaffee, Humphrey, 
or any other army officer. Never was he accused of pessimism, or 
of setting forth the actual American opinion in Manila of the situa- 
tion, military or civil. Meanwhile, he held always to his first love, 
— Leonard Wood, — and when found out and dismissed by his 
employer, the Associated Press, returned to New York to boom 
him and depreciate the services of Governor Taft in his book, ' As 
It Is in the Philippines.' 

"'Bellairs,' journalist and author, has run his career. But 
his memory and the fame of his brilliant, if ephemeral, exploits 
will long linger as an illustration of how 'all the people may be 
fooled part of the time.'" 

Further light on the career of Bellairs and his operations in 
Canada is furnished in an article in the Toronto "News," from 
which the following is quoted : 

"Another of Balantyne's [Bellairs'] dodges was the organization 
of what he dubbed ' The Byron Club.' It was ultimately to become 
a kind of Toronto home of literary and scientific lights, and he 
succeeded in securing the names of several estimable citizens on 
his provisional committee of management. He began to reap 
the harvest of his schemes. The first result was the collection 
of several subscriptions to the Byron Club — $15 per man. Fifteen 
or twenty men handed over the cash to the Secretary — Mr. Balan- 
tyne. This was on toward the end of a certain week in August. 
On the Saturday morning Balantyne made a progress down King 



i7 

Street, and in every shop where he had any acquaintance, or where 
he thought he might be known, he floated checks for from $10 
to $50. The merchants who did not know him personally had 
heard of him; of his open-handed generosity, and had also seen 
him, in many cases, in company with gentlemen whose names 
were above reproach. This latter plan was a part of Balantyne's 
method of obtaining public confidence. He was very fond of 
being seen in company with men of weight, and he joined them 
in the street whenever he could. 

"Well, on that Saturday morning Balantyne literally 'did up' 
the town. Pretty nearly every merchant who had ever cashed a 
check for a customer cashed one for him. A small purchase was 
usually made, but more often it was a case of merely 'needing 
the money, and the bank being some distance away.' Some of 
the hotels contributed also, and that afternoon Mr. Balantyne, 
the founder of the Byron Club, the cash of the merchants, and 
Mr. Balantyne's baggage took the boat for Niagara. On board 
were some acquaintances, whom he told that he was going to 
Buffalo for the week end. And then forever he vanished from 
the gaze of Toronto." 



WHO IS CORRECT? 



To put down the insurrection 
and restore peace to the islands 
was a duty not only to our- 
selves, but to the islanders also. 
We could not have abandoned 
the conflict without shirking 
this duty, without proving our- 
selves recreants to the memory 
of our forefathers. Moreover, 
if we had abandoned it we 
would have inflicted upon the 
Filipinos the most cruel wrong 
and would have doomed them 
to a bloody jumble of anarchy 
and tyranny. — President Roose- 
velt. 



The administration is incor- 
ruptibly honest; justice is jeal- 
ously safeguarded as here at 
home. The government is con- 
ducted purely in the interests 
of the people of the islands; 
they are protected in their reli- 
gious and civil rights ; they have 
been given an excellent and 
well-administered school system 
and each of them now enjoys 
rights to "life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness," such as 
were never before known in all 
the history of the islands. 

Not only has the military 
problem in the Philippines been 
worked out quicker and better 
that we had dared to expect, 
but the progress socially and 



That a general desire for in- 
dependence existed in the Phil- 
ippines, especially among the 
Tagalogs, cannot be doubted. 
It found its first expression in 
the rebellion against Spain, and 
it is not difficult to- understand 
why it spread so rapidly. . . . 
We accepted their (Filipino) 
aid; ... we then practi- 
cally turned the insurrectos 
loose over all the archipelago, 
to gather up the Spanish garri- 
sons and arms, and we nearly 
completed the apotheosis of the 
dreamers for Filipino independ- 
ence. — Gen. Geo. W. Davis, now 
Commander Military Division of 
the Philippines. 

I am not prepared to say 
whether the Filipinos are our 
enemies or not. ... I am 
an exploiter and I believe that 
if we ever get any good out of >/ 
the islands we must explore and 
exploit them. — Gen. Adna R. 
Chaffee. 

Conditions in the Philippines 
have made it necessary for the 
islands to buy about $15,000,000 
worth of food on which to live. 
. . The bane of Philippine 
civilization in the past was 
ladronism, and the present con- 
ditions are most favorable for 
its growth and maintenance. 
Were there inducements to agri- 
culture, were there prosperous 
conditions in the country, it 
would not be a troublesome 
matter to deal with; but when 
want and famine are staring the 
people in the face, the life of 
the freebooter forms to the 
desperate and the weak a very 
great attraction. The natural 
discontent with the government 
when suffering is at hand, pro- 



J 9 



in civil government has likewise 
exceeded our fondest hopes. 

In Governor Taft and his 
associates we sent to the Fili- 
pinos as upright, as conscien- 
tious, and as able a group of 
administrators as ever any coun- 
try has been blessed with hav- 
ing. — President Roosevelt. 



Under such circumstances, 
among 100,000 hot-blooded and 
powerful young men serving 
in small detachments on the 
other side of the globe, it was 
impossible that occasional in- 
stances of wrong-doing should 
not occur. The fact that they 
occurred in retaliation for well- 
nigh intolerable provocation can 
not for a moment be admitted 
in the way of excuse or justifica- 
tion. All good Americans regret 
and deplore them, and the War 
Department has taken every 
step in its power to punish the 
offenders and to prevent or 
minimize the chance of repeti- 
tion of the offense. But these 
offenses were the exception and 
not the rule. As a whole our 
troops showed not only signal 



moted as it has been by the 
cholera restrictions and the 
high prices of rice and other 
commodities, which have been 
greatly enhanced by the depre- 
ciation of silver, might well 
have caused a new breaking out 
of the insurrection. ... It 
may be that as the conditions 
grow worse — for they are likely 
to do so before they grow better 
— it will be necessary in a 
province like Cavite, where 
ladronism seems inbred in the 
people, to proclaim martial law 
and even to call in the military 
finally to suppress it; but it is 
still hoped this may be avoided. 
. . On the whole there is 
before us a year of the hardest 
kind of work relieving the 
people from the hardship and 
suffering likely to follow the 
failure of the rice crop, and 
suppressing ladronism and 
other disturbances due to eco- 
nomic distress. — Governor W. H. 
Taft, January, 1903. 

What I am trying to do is to 
state what seemed to us to be 
the explanation of these cruel- 
ties: That cruelties have been 
inflicted; that people have been 
shot when they ought not to 
have been ; that there have been 
individual instances of water 
cure, that torture which I be- 
lieve involves pouring water 
down the throat so that the 
man swells and gets the im- 
pression that he is going to be 
suffocated and then tells what 
he knows, which was a frequent 
treatment under the Spaniards, 
I am told — all these things are 
true. [Italics ours.] 

I have no doubt there were 
such instances [of water torture 
by Macabebes] — of course, a 
great many more than there 



20 



courage and efficiency, but great 
humanity and the most sincere 
desire to promote the welfare 
and liberties of the islanders. — 
President Roosevelt. 



Wherever in the Philippines 
the insurrection has been defi- 
nitely and finally put down, 
there the individual Filipino 
already enjoys such freedom, 
such personal liberty under our 
rule, as he could never even 
dream of under the rule of 
an "independent" Aguinaldian 
oligarchy. — President Roosevelt, 
ivlay 30, 1903. 



ought to have been. — Governor 
W. H. Taft. 

The women and children are 
part of the family, and where you 
wish to inflict a punishment you 
can punish the man probably 
worse in that way than in any 
other. [Italics ours.] — General 
Hughes, in defending the policy 
of burning Filipino homes as a 
mode of punishment. 

. . . In the department I 
suppose I had at times as many 
as a hundred and twenty com- 
mands in the field. Each com- 
mander, under general restric- 
tions, had authority to act for 
himself. These commanders 

were changed from time to 
time. The new commanders 
coming in would probably start 
in very much easier than the 
old ones. . . . They would 
come from this country with 
their ideas of civilized warfare 
and they were allowed to get 
their lesson. [Italics ours.] — 
General Hughes. 

As an illustration of the ' ' free- 
dom, personal liberty, and pur- 
suit of happiness" enjoyed by 
the Filipinos, the following inci- 
dent may be of interest : In the 
early part of February of this 
year, according to the Manila 
"American," the American au- 
thorities suppressed a play writ- 
ten by a Filipino, the English title 
of which is "I Am Not Dead. " 
This play was being presented 
at one of the theaters in Manila, 
and in the midst of the per- 
formance members of the de- 
tective department put in an 
appearance and seized the 
libretto and the play. The 
"American" in its article savs: 
'While there is not a line in the 
play that would appear revo- 
lutionary on its face, there is a 



21 



double meaning to every word 
in it. The play is cheered from 
beginning to end and it is easy 
to see from the expressions on 
the faces of the audience that 
it understands well the revolu- 
tionary sentiments expressed by 
the players. There is a general 
impression among the natives 
composing the audience that 
the insurrection is not dead." 
And for these reasons the play 
was suppressed by the American 
authorities. 



ifi RARY of congress # 



027 531 504 7 



